Body Master

by C. J. Barry

Apollo pulled out a beer and popped the cap off. “More than usual, huh?”

  Max took a seat at the island. “I’m working for a man who can’t stand me in an office with a bunch of agents who don’t know they hate me yet. My best moment was when my new female partner resisted the urge to shoot me on sight.”

  “A female?”

  Max crossed his arms. “She’d kick your ass.”

  Apollo grinned. “You know how I love a challenge.”

  A strange possessiveness surprised Max, and he shook it off. “Not this one. I need her.”

  “Be careful talking like that. You might actually get yourself a woman.”

  Max ignored Apollo’s challenge. “I had a woman. That’s enough for one lifetime.”

  Apollo shook his head. “It’s been two years, Max. I don’t think Ell would agree with that. I think she’d want you to move on. In fact, I know it. She was the considerate one.”

  His chest tightened. Even though Ell rarely left his thoughts, he hadn’t heard her name in so long, would never utter it himself. Just the sound of it hurt. “She never had to deal with humans.”

  Apollo shrugged. “They aren’t all bad. Me? I like the women.”

  Max shook his head. Spoken like a man who’d never had his heart broken. “Doesn’t matter anyway. This agent won’t accept us. She’s lost too many close friends to Shifters.”

  “So if she hates you so much, why did you pick her? Is she hot?”

  Max rubbed his fingers where the memory of her heat was imprinted. “I just need her skills.”

  Apollo grinned. “We’re still talking hot women here.”

  Max said, “Not those kinds of skills. She’s the best agent XCEL has. I don’t know why, but she’s taken down a lot of Shifters. It’s not just her weapons or the way she runs her ops. She’s different from the rest of them. Better. And I need the best if I’m going to find who killed Ell.”

  Apollo slammed his bottle on the island and raised his hands. “Are you serious? I thought you were taking this job to finally start over again. Christ, you haven’t changed at all in two years.”

  “My hair is longer,” Max noted.

  Apollo ignored him. “You dragged me off that ship and halfway across the country tracking this guy—”

  “Did you have somewhere else to go?” Max asked.

  “We’ve covered every inch of Manhattan looking for him,” Apollo continued.

  “Apparently not every inch,” Max muttered.

  “Wasted God knows how much time and how much money—”

  Max narrowed his eyes at his best friend. “He killed Ell, remember?”

  “When are you going to let this guy go?”

  “When I find him and kill him.”

  Apollo placed both his hands on the island. “And what if you don’t?”

  “I will. I have help now. I have Seneca. I have XCEL—all their resources and intelligence,” Max said. “The killer is still here, in this city, and sooner or later he’ll show up on XCEL’s radar.”

  Apollo leaned forward and pointed a finger at Max. “Listen to me. Ell was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ran into someone who wanted to keep her quiet permanently. Maybe it was the bastard who betrayed us back on Govan—”

  “It’s him. She left the mark of traitor in her own blood,” Max said, feeling the anger rise despite the fact that Apollo was his best friend. “She knew we’d understand. Hell, she practically ID’d him for us.”

  “With what? We don’t have a name. We don’t have a description.”

  “I have his scent. That’s all we need.”

  Apollo shook his head. “You keep saying this ‘we’ stuff. There is no ‘we.’ I’m done.”

  “I’m not asking for your help,” Max said.

  “Oh, right,” Apollo said. “You have a new partner to help you out. Does she know that this guy practically wiped out our entire race by betraying us to the government? Does she know that he killed Ell because she discovered who he was? Does she know that she’s next in line if you two get close to him?”

  “Nope.” Max had no intention of Seneca ever getting that close. The traitor was his. He was the only one who could find him. The only one with the traitor’s scent permanently ingrained in his memory.

  “You are playing with fire, my friend. If she’s that good, she’ll figure it out. Just imagine how pleased she’s going to be when she finds out you’re using her for your own nefarious needs.”

  “She won’t,” Max said. At least, not from him.

  “Hey, it’s your funeral.” Apollo drained the beer and opened the fridge for another. “You sure you don’t want one?”

  Max waved him off. “I have to go back to work tonight and I don’t need a reason for my partner to turn me in.”

  Apollo popped open a fresh beer. “Doing anything interesting?”

  “Going Shifter hunting.”

  Apollo’s eyebrows rose. “Good luck with that.”

  Max eased off the chair and rolled his tight shoulders. “Shifter hunting is easy. It’s the friendly fire that worries me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  By 11:00 P.M. Seneca was standing in the middle of Dave’s Bar & Grill. There was blood everywhere. It covered the floor and walls, was spattered across the mirrors and neon signs, and had dried in a crusty layer over the bar.

  This was what it looked like when six people were slaughtered. She closed her eyes and let the ghosts whisper to her. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned the fight, heard the screams, and watched the blood flow. And she saw Dillinger—slashing, roaring, and smiling. Anger welled up in her core, feeding a fire that would never die. Noko was right. She couldn’t quit. Who would watch over the good people?

  “Find anything?”

  Wrenched from deep within herself, she jumped at the voice and spun around to find Dempsey standing behind her. She hadn’t even heard him come in. In the doorway, he was part shadow, part man, and all trouble.

  Noko’s words came to her. You have a shape within you as well.

  No, I don’t, Seneca thought. She had a destiny that she didn’t ask for, didn’t want. Her grandmother could believe whatever she wanted to. The biggest concern Seneca had at the moment was keeping Dempsey from learning too much about her.

  “Nothing that wasn’t in the report,” she said.

  His eyes shone iridescent for a moment, and she caught a flash of suspicion. Too bad, big boy. Max Dempsey may be working for XCEL but he was on a need-to-know basis with her.

  She watched him move around the room, surveying the gruesome arena until he came to the pool table in the center. He pressed a finger to the stained felt, and blood oozed up through the fabric. The memory of Jack and his bloody claw resurfaced, and her hand was on her gun before she realized it.

  Dempsey swore softly, and she froze. She took a deep breath and let her hand drop, surprised by the sudden emotional overload. What was wrong with her? As much as she hated Shifters, she wouldn’t kill them for no good reason . . . She stopped right there, realizing that might not be entirely true.

  “Something wrong?” Dempsey was standing in front of her, a curious look on his face.

  The last thing she needed was for him to suspect she was any more than a typical shapeshifter hunter. “No. I’m fine.” She wasn’t. Too many death scenes, too little sleep, too far from hope. “Are you picking anything up?”

  His gaze lingered on her for a few moments, and then he shook his head. “I can recognize Shifters on sight, but I don’t get any residual impressions. Just his scent, which is strong, and not in a good way. He smelled like he spent some time in the gutters.” Then he looked at her. “How about you?”

  Did he know? Impossible. “Don’t look at me. I’m not a freak.”

  A flicker of resentment darkened his eyes at her insinuation. A freak like you.

  He said, “I know you aren’t used to working with a Shifter without shooting first, but I’d appreciate it if you’d cool the hostility act. I want
this guy as much as you do, and we’re both going to lose him if we don’t cooperate.”

  “So you can write the report that’s going to put us out of business?” Seneca knew she shouldn’t go there, but she couldn’t help herself. This was wrong.

  Dempsey eyed her. “That’s not the point of this exercise.”

  “Then what is the point? To prove that you are the superior species? Maybe replace us completely?”

  He squinted at her. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”

  “It’s my life,” she muttered. “You take over here and then what? A Shifter president? A Shifter Supreme Court judge? Or better yet, just steal their DNA, kill them off, and step into their shoes.”

  His anger showed for the first time. “Considering how this country runs, that might not be a bad idea.”

  She gritted her teeth. “It might be a screwed up country, but it’s my screwed up country. You have no right to it. You weren’t invited.”

  He took a step toward her, bringing his shadow closer. It reached out as if to swallow her up. His voice was raspy and raw, his eyes locked on her. “We had no choice. Big difference. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here. And if your people spent as much time on technology as they do on building weapons to blow each other up, then we big, bad Shifters would be gone by now.”

  Jerk. “If your people hadn’t pissed off the last planet you were on, you wouldn’t have had to leave it.” She knew as soon as she’d said it that she’d made a mistake.

  The shadow around him pulsed brightly, a shape of a demon itching to be freed. It turned a deep, dark crimson as he moved closer to her. She fought the urge to step back and put her hand back on her gun.

  “We didn’t piss them off. We simply tried to live there.”

  She really wanted to push him over the edge. Maybe he’d do something stupid like kill her and then the Committee would know that they were wrong to trust Shifters. On the other hand, that would require that she die. It was a difficult decision, but finally she opted for righteous silence.

  Then Dempsey turned his back to her, tension filling his body as he took a few deep breaths. The shadow had stilled and faded by the time he faced her again.

  “I don’t care what you think of me, Seneca Thomas. I don’t care what you think of Shifters. And I don’t care if you think it’s not fair,” he said, his tone under careful control. “I want this bastard, and you’re going to help me get him.”

  You’re going to help me get him.

  Seneca stewed as they exited yet another bar without a lead. So much for her being in charge. It took all of fifteen minutes for that to change. Shifters. Can’t trust ’em, can’t kill ’em—at least not tonight.

  No bar owners had seen Dillinger’s human form in the photos or admitted to it. She told them to call her if he showed up. Her guess would be they’d give him money in hopes he’d leave. You got a lot of respect in this town for killing six people. Now if she could tell them that the guy could morph into a murdering monster, she’d bet they’d call in a heartbeat. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  It was 3:00 A.M., and she was cold and sick of sucking smoke into her lungs. Seneca drew in a deep breath and let the frigid blast shock her brain to attention. Despite a few hours of precious sleep, she wasn’t one hundred percent and she knew it. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that they had no leads. All that could change, though, because they were headed to the pier along Battery Park for her meeting with her best informant.

  She noted that Dempsey had taken “cordial” to a whole new silent level, which was fine with her. If he was waiting for an apology, he’d wait for hell to freeze over. It wasn’t right that his people invade her planet.

  We had no choice.

  She knew that too. The official word was that his race was being exterminated and a shipload of Shifters had escaped. They’d crashed here, and their ship had exploded. Unfortunately, a few thousand had managed to escape, giving the term “illegal aliens” a whole new meaning. Even with a swift military response to the crash, the aliens had scattered to parts unknown, picking up the culture and figuring out how to replace humans with surprising ease and skill. Most had been deemed harmless, at least by intelligence. However, she trusted her government intelligence about as much as she trusted Dempsey.

  By the time they reached the park, her toes were numb in her boots. Bursts of vapor accompanied every breath. She looked over the calm water at the Statue of Liberty, standing proud and resolute.

  . . . Give me your tired, your poor . . . The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed . . .

  Seneca huffed and wondered if Lady Liberty ever got tired of holding that big-ass torch.

  Dempsey looked around. “We’re early?”

  It was the longest sentence he’d spoken to her since Dave’s.

  “A bit. Bart’s like a ghost,” she told him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’s one of you.”

  “How do you know he’s not?”

  Seneca stilled, aware of Dempsey’s gaze on her and his curiosity. Damn, she needed to be more careful. “He doesn’t like Shifters.”

  “Then how does he get all his information?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t ask. All I know is that it’s always good.”

  A couple walked past them, and Seneca caught the shadow. One of them was a Shifter, the other a human. It took every ounce of her control to not let on in front of Dempsey.

  A Shifter and a human. Just something else to worry about. Offspring. It was only a matter of time. It hadn’t happened yet, as far as she knew, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch. She glanced at Dempsey’s broad shoulders, rugged face, and quiet intensity. If he were a human, she might be more than a little interested. He wasn’t, and she knew it. But she was sure he’d met women who didn’t know what he was.

  “Has your species ever tried to procreate with another?” she asked, surprising herself with the bluntness of her question. Must be the lack of sleep.

  Dempsey’s eyes moved to hers, and she caught the iridescent glow as he turned all that intensity on her. “A little early to bring up the question of sex, partner. I figured you’d last until at least the second night.”

  Crap. She should have kept her mouth shut. “I assume if you have human DNA that you also have human parts, Dempsey.”

  He grinned suddenly, and she forgot the rest of her question for a moment until her teeth started chattering. “Forget it,” she said and shivered. “Obviously, men are men regardless of what planet they come from.”

  “That is something I’ve noticed,” he said and moved next to her to block the brunt of the breeze coming off the water. She sidestepped to get back into it.

  “And to answer your question,” he said, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “Yes. But every species is different. Yours doesn’t appear to be compatible enough to bear children.”

  There was a God after all. If Shifters couldn’t procreate, maybe they’d all die off in fifty or sixty years. Or maybe they were like vampires and lived forever. Or worse, like cockroaches that could survive a nuclear war. They could be here forever.

  Dempsey continued, “Now sex is another story. Personally, I’ve never had any complaints.”

  She murmured, “Spare me the details.” But the visual had already formed and everything.

  Dempsey grinned and wisely ended discussion on the topic. The wind picked up, and Seneca ducked her head lower in her coat collar. She covertly watched Dempsey’s profile as he scouted the park. He wasn’t at all what she expected. She expected arrogant. Well, he was that. And cold-blooded, which he might be since the frigid weather didn’t seem to affect him. And uncivilized, which he definitely wasn’t.

  In fact, he seemed intelligent, determined, driven, and totally into his work. He could have any job he wanted, so why was he here, trying to catch his own kind? She couldn’t be the only one who gave him s
hit along the way, who didn’t trust him. So why would he do it? Why take the flack?

  World peace, my ass. She wasn’t buying that for a minute. He had another reason for being here. She could feel something below the surface, something he kept under tight wraps.

  “Incoming,” Dempsey murmured, his gaze fixed on the sidewalk ahead. Seneca couldn’t see anything in the dark and wrapped her hand around the gun in her holster under her long coat.

  A few moments later, a small man approached wearing black jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the hood over his head. She released a breath of relief and shoved her hands back into her pockets. As Bart drew closer, he slowed and eyed Dempsey with suspicion.

  She said, “It’s okay. He’s cool. New partner.”

  Bart nodded at Dempsey and then settled his gaze on her. She could smell the booze on him and no doubt Dempsey could too. Bart’s eyes were bloodshot and a little unfocused, and his nose was bright red.

  “Nice seeing you, Seneca. Sorry about Riley.”

  “Thanks,” she said and didn’t ask how he’d found out. Bart always seemed to know what was going on. She liked him, even if he did spend too much time with the bottle. He had been her main man for the past year, and he was a decent guy. More than that, she trusted the information he gave her.

  She gave him the photos of Dillinger, and he bobbed his head after studying them in the dim light. “I heard of this guy. Bad dude. Likes to cut people.”

  “Any idea where he might be holed up?”

  Bart pulled his hood down farther over his head and looked around. “Maybe. Maybe he’s part of the new game in town.”

  She sensed his edginess. “Someone new?”

  He looked at her soberly, bloodshot eyes and all. “Now I ain’t been down there to check this myself, you understand.”

  “Down where?” Seneca asked.

  He whispered, “The tunnels.”

  “Subway?” Dempsey asked.

  Bart looked at Dempsey. “Yeah. Train tunnels too. Sewers, everywhere down there. The Shifters have taken over.”

  Seneca knew there were miles of underground networks crisscrossing the city. Thousands of exits and hiding places. If the Shifters were down there, they could come and go under the city practically undetected.